Who among us — stuck in Covid-19 limbo for more than two years — hasn't thought about selling it all and heading onto the highway?
What's stopping you? Work? A mortgage?
Thanks to remote work and a hot housing market, nothing is stopping Jess Gartner.
The CEO of Allovue decided it was time to take her work-from-home out of her home and across the country. She sold her Baltimore house last week and took off for a cross-country trek that knows no bounds.
"I"m going to take a very slow road trip around the country. It might be for three months. It might be for three years," said Jess Gartner, when reached by phone about her big move.
The middle school teacher turned entrepreneur plans to continue managing Allovue, an education tech company, and its remote 37 employees from afar.
Allovue specializes in helping school districts and state departments manage finances. The company works with districts across at least 15 states to help budget and manage billions in annual K-12 public education spending.
Gartner says she'll be able to visit her employees — who have all been remote for the past two years — in their home cities across the nation. She'll also be able to touch base with clients.
Gartner, accompanied by her cat and "reluctant participant," Darwin, plans to make her first stop in Pittsburgh. Other planned stops include house sitting for her mom in Towson and then to Maine, Brooklyn, New York, the South, the West and eventually the Pacific Northwest.
Gartner said she found herself perusing Zillow, the online house selling site, in search of her next abode.
"I really just couldn’t decide," she said. "I just really didn’t know where I wanted to go — and where I wanted to be."
So she hatched a plan where she could explore the entire country looking for her next home. She originally planned to leave in October but a cooling housing market changed her mind.
Gartner ended up selling her house in the trendy Remington neighborhood in two days. She downsized her possessions so they could fit in a storage unit and her car.
"I'm ready to live my life differently," she said. "I can take 10 hours a day of Zoom calls from anywhere. I really can do my job from anywhere — and just explore a little bit more of the country. I’m very open to where the wind takes me on this.”
But Gartner, 35, said she's not quite ready to say goodbye to Baltimore for good. Once a Teach for America corps member, Gartner made a name for herself in the local technology industry with her nine-year-old company. She has received many honors, including being named to the Baltimore Business Journal's 40 Under 40 and Tech 10 lists.
"My heart is still very much in Baltimore," she said. "I’m sure I’ll still stay tethered to it."
